The Freedom of Vengeance
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: In the year Two-Thousand, something terrible happened that forced the world to use Japan as a dumping ground for any children that possessed unnatural powers. Fifteen years later, the children that were forced to fend for themselves are still being persecuted…and on this land where every move you make could decide your fate, one of the outcasts must rise from the ashes and fight.
1. Prologue

Creation began on 01-20-14

Creation ended on 01-21-14

Neon Genesis Evangelion

The Freedom of Vengeance

A/N: So many prototypes for what I want to write, and so many ways to get inspired to write something new. Just last night, another writer's work inspired me.

The night had no means to wash away the stain of the nightmare he suffered from each passing day. Neither could walking on the damaged streets, exploring the ruins of old skyscrapers, not even the thought of running. All that really helped him…whenever the opportunity came to him…was the thrill of a battle, the glory of a victory before it was achieved…and all the monetary rewards that came after it was over. That was all that could help a boy like Shinji forget his past, his past…and his desire for wanting what was taken from him years ago.

As he stood atop the damaged building in the dead of the night, just as a plane was flying overhead, his dark hair rose up and turned brownish-black as his fists clenched. A smile formed on his face as he leapt from the rooftop and soared to the ground below, smashing the pavement and sending several men and women that were no older or younger than he currently was flying backwards.

"Aaaaurgh!" He heard them scream, and their groans of agony came shortly after.

"So, it's true, then," he looked up past the fallen teens and tweens and saw a boy in a black track suit, "what I was told beforehand: You're the Outcast they all fear!"

"We're all Outcasts, one way or another," he told the boy, "and who might you be?"

"Suzuhara," the boy in the track suit identified himself. "Toji Suzuhara, Keeper of the Juggernite."

"Juggernite?"

"I'll show you my power!"

Shinji saw his body glow with a rainbow outline…and the small building behind him atomize into nothing, replaced by a large, dark, mechanical humanoid equipped with large arms, like a creature that had no choice but to walk on its knuckles in addition to its feet.

Toji then jumped atop of this monstrosity, this Juggernite, and became attached to its head.

"No one has ever been able to beat my Familiar!" He told Shinji.

"Then I'll be the first!" Shinji responded, raising up his fists.

"Those hands," Toji looked at the limbs that were his opponents. "Arms that were wrapped in black and blue armor…and dark hair that browns up whenever they appear. What kind of Familiar Summoner are you, anyway?"

"I don't really take the time to name my Familiar ability," Shinji expressed, "only that it's a strange power I've had ever since I was young enough to remember…and it has caused me much grief. But it has its uses."

"I'll have my Juggernite break you in half! Go!"

The Juggernite raised its massive, right arm and brought it down on Shinji.

"Urgh!" Shinji raised his arms up and blocked the assault, and then a pair of long, black and white, tiger-striped ribbons appeared on his back, extending down to his knees. "My turn! Fist of the Wraith of Grief!"

He lowered his right arm, feeling the armor on its wrist extend a pair of small blades, and brought it back up, punching the massive arm over him and smashing its mechanical surface into bits! The impact was so strong that it sent the rest of the Juggernite falling backwards, crumbling into atoms, and Toji fell to the streets.

"Urgh! No! My Juggernite!" He whined at how his Familiar was defeated so easily.

The fallen people got back up and found the only Familiar Summoner they knew that owned a giant Familiar defeated by a Familiar that was quite rare. They didn't know that many that could use their Familiars as extensions of themselves. For all they cared to admit, this Shinji was the only one that could do so.

Shinji approached Toji, looked down upon him…and offered him his right hand.

Toji sighed and accepted his assistance.

"No one has ever beaten my Juggernite before," he expressed. "Who are you?"

"Shinji," Shinji identified himself again. "No last name. Just plain Shinji."

"Welcome to the Hell that is Japan, the nation the rest of the world uses as a dumping ground for Familiar Summoners."

"Even a place like this has something worth having."

Suddenly, a large, blinding light shone on everyone on the street! A series of large helicopters hovering above them. They all had large, red, capital letters that spelled out "NERV" written on their sides.

"Attention!" A female voice shouted over a megaphone. "All Familiar Summoners! You are under arrest for reckless endangerment and destruction of public property! Surrender immediately!"

"Oh, shit!" A teen girl shouted. "It's NERV! Head for the sewers!"

Soon enough, everyone was running into the dark buildings before they could be followed by the military police that jumped from the helicopters, armed with guns and net-launchers.

-x-

"…Was it really necessary to send a small army after a bunch of kids?" An elderly man asked a younger man, observing the scenes through the cameras the soldiers were wearing on their helmets.

"Against these abominations," the younger man responded, "some would demand an N² weapon be used to eradicate a potential threat."

"A threat? They're just kids."

"Not to everyone."

-x-

"…I swear, they never stop," a little girl said to the other kids that were present, wandering through the sewers. "It's bad enough that they left us for dead on this archipelago, but to try and arrest us simply for trying to survive here…is just immoral."

"It's always immoral," another girl responded.

Further ahead, Shinji and Toji led the way to their destination.

"So, Shinji," went Toji, "how long have you been here?"

"A long time," Shinji answered.

"I meant how many years? I've been here for seven years."

"A decade…ever since my mother was killed."

"Ten years? That's cold."

"My old man was a cold bastard. A merciless son of a bitch."

They reached a light at the end of the sewer and stopped at a damaged opening of a former storm drain, leading to a makeshift village of stitched-up boxes and wooden boards made to look like buildings.

"This is where you guys live?" Shinji asked Toji.

"Most of us," he answered. "You?"

"I, uh…live in a more…isolated spot around this part of Japan. But I might find my way home from here. Until next time."

Shinji then left the others, passing the buildings and leaving the place they used as their living environment in favor of the one he knew.

-x-

_In the harsh night, bad men came for them again,_ thought a young girl's mind, _looking to accuse them of any wrong they didn't fully understand, that no one taught them, forcing them to run and hide. The boy with the strong hands and quiet heart helped to get them to safety, showing that, despite his harsh surroundings, he was a good person, never wanting more than what he needed to live. Still, he desired happiness, to be accepted by others. He really wants to be loved._

"…Nami?" A voice awoke the girl, and she opened her eyes to one of the two boys she lived with: Shinji, who seemed like he'd been by himself for a while.

"I was…dreaming," she told him.

"Oh. I'm sorry I woke you," he apologized to her.

-x-

"…The Familiar Summoners," a man said the darkness of a secret meeting. "They need to be dealt with as soon as possible. It's costing as much as a small nation to keep them confined to Japan."

"And that's just yearly," went another man. "We already have at least eighty Familiar Summoners affiliated with NERV, but most of them refuse to be subjugated. Of all the ones that have been scheduled to be shipped to the nation of Japan, some of them had to watch their parents die trying to keep the authorities from taking them from their homes."

"How long until we can get the approval of Operation: Endgame?" A third man asked.

"A year. Maybe less than that," a fourth man answered. "After Second Impact, people have been left in too much financial ruin to care about a move that would murder some of their own."

"That will all change if we can find a way to use these Familiar Summoners for our own gain," a fifth expressed. "Supposedly, the Second Impact had opened a type of doorway to another dimension where there's nothing but unlimited energy just waiting to be possessed. If we got it for ourselves, we'd be able to solve the extensive demands for power."

"But to do that, we must find a way to reopen the door."

-x-

Atop the lonely mountain's devastated mansion, Shinji sat on the roof, awaiting the sunrise, wondering how long he could continue surviving in this demented wasteland that was as close to Hell on Earth as anyplace ever could be. As the sky turned grayish-blue, signaling that the sun would rise soon, Shinji, despite his reluctance to do so, thought back to his awful childhood, back to the day that his sense of security was taken from him. He couldn't forget the very hour that marked the beginning of his personal losses.

It was a week after his fourth birthday, and his mother and he were just walking down the streets of New York; his parents had relocated to the States after a catastrophe called Second Impact had left their ancestral homelands in ruins…and a dumping ground for those that developed unnatural abilities. They were just minding their own business…when the sky turned dark and several buildings were soon demolished by something that wasn't a wrecking ball or an explosive used in demolitions. A dust cloud came their way and Shinji saw something that changed his life. He saw a…a man, a giant of a man, dressed in skeletal-like armor that was black and gray over silver-looking flesh that looked on fire, but wasn't burning like regular fire. But what caught Shinji's gaze and haunted him to the present were the man's arms: The skeletal armor on the right arm was red while the left was green.

This man appeared…and unleashed a firestorm upon them, leaving them buried under some debris. The devastation was so extreme that Shinji, who managed to survive being buried under the debris, was crushed to find that his mother was not as lucky as he had been, for she suffered from a fractured skull and internal bleeding from ruptured organs. It was also the day that Shinji discovered his power.

"_Aaaaaaurgh!"_ He had yelled in agony, and his body glowed with the same, rainbow-like outline as chunks of the debris around him and his arms became enveloped in black and blue armor, just as the black and white ribbons manifested on his back. _"Aaaaaaurgh!"_

He never saw the man after that day…and nobody took him serious when it came out what he was. Not even his father believed him or tried to keep the authorities from shipping him off to Japan like he had done the murder and destruction on his own. Other than wanting justice for the injustice he was dealt, Shinji wanted to find this Familiar Summoner (he was left to assume that the man had to be one) that destroyed his past. He would ask whoever was from other parts of the archipelago that was a Familiar Summoner if they had ever encountered this man, and all he would really have to ask them is if they had seen somebody that had a red right arm and a left green one.

But no one he asked had ever seen anyone like who he had seen.

_I won't give up,_ he thought, just as the sun rose from beyond the horizon, bathing the land in its light. _I will find the guy…and I will make him pay._

A minute later, a pair of small hands were felt by him on his shoulders, and he knew that Nami was up.

"Good morning," she greeted him.

"Good morning," he responded to the little, raven-haired girl he had known for two years. "How was your sleep?"

"I had a nice dream, like the previous night. This strongman with a quiet heart saved people from other people that were cruel and got them to safety."

"Would this man be the same one that fought a gang of bullies and saved a bunch of kids that were being used as slaves?"

"Yes."

"Do you ever have a normal dream, Nami?"

"Shinji-Kun, you know I've not had a normal dream ever since I met you in those ruins."

"You know I hate it when you call me that."

"Yet you never do anything about it."

-x-

"…Misato Katsuragi," greeted the commander of NERV, Gendo Ikari, to the purple-haired twenty-nine-year-old woman that arrived last night during the failed attempt to apprehend some of the Familiar Summoners, "welcome to NERV HQ."

"I was instructed that there was a Familiar Summoner here in Japan that you needed assistance finding," she explained what she was informed of before she left Germany.

"That's right," went the Sub-Commander of NERV, Kozo Fuyutsuki. "Of course, you do understand that our information on the Familiar Summoners is scarce."

"Simple descriptions on abilities is more than sufficient enough."

"Be reminded that we're looking for a Japanese boy around the age of fourteen," Gendo expressed, "and possesses an unusual ability to cover his arms up to the shoulders in black and blue armor and sports two ribbons on his back whenever he uses them. Finding him is a top priority."

Although Misato was sure that Familiar Summoners that could summon giant, mechanical monsters were the more dangerous ones that lived. She had no idea what was so special about a boy that couldn't do anything beyond covering his arms in armor and sprout a pair of ribbons on his back. Whatever the reason, she believed that Commander Ikari seemed adamant that the boy be found and brought to NERV, by any means necessary.

To be continued…

A/N: In case you didn't understand it much, this is based off of _s-CRY-ed_, with Shinji similar to both Kazuma and Ryuho, Toji similar to Biff, Misato similar to Mimori, and Gendo could probably be Martin Jigmar, but without the powers. Second Impact is the first Great Uprising and Japan itself is the Lost Ground. I'll leave this alone for a while and see if people will want more. If more is desired later on, who do you want Asuka, Hikari, Rei, Kensuke, Kaworu to represent in the story or what powers would you like to see them demonstrate? It's likely that Asuka could be the female version of Ryuho, since she always hates Shinji, mainly just for breathing. Read it and send me a review. It's a prototype!


	2. Shinji versus Asuka

Creation began on 01-28-14

Creation ended on 02-17-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

The Freedom of Vengeance: Shinji versus Asuka

A/N: Here's the second chapter of my _Evangelion/s-CRY-ed_ story. Try this on for amazement!

…It had happened so fast for him. He never thought he'd be defeated by a girl that just showed up looking for him, wanting to beat the living daylights out of him. While she might've seemed attractive enough to talk with, Shinji wasn't impressed by the hyper-aggressive personality of the foreign redhead that was a Familiar Summoner like he was. Falling on the battlefield, his Familiar atomized into dust off his arms.

_Hang on! Hang on! Don't give up!_ His inner voice shouted at him, urging him to keep hold of his faith in getting away from the redhead and the NERV organization.

-x-

_Just five minutes ago_

It had been two days since the night he beat Toji Suzuhara and his Juggernite Familiar and reaped the rewards of his victory for later use. When he received word of another Familiar Summoner that used his power to hurt the defenseless and of another bounty for putting him in his place, Shinji was quick to find the guy and deal with him. Unfortunately, he hadn't any clue that the guy was also a member of NERV, one of the very agencies he wanted nothing to do with. He had thought it was the guy he was looking for that caused him grief.

"Shinji Ikari!" The guy he was looking for on the outskirts of Tokyo shouted over a megaphone. "In accordance with NERV's global protection/resources program for Familiar Summoners, it is in your best interests that you surrender yourself immediately!"

Shinji just summoned his Familiar and prepared for battle.

"No way will I submit to you!" He responded, and propelled himself forward against the mobile command center that the guy was on, punching it with his armored fists and sending it toppling over onto its side. "I embrace freedom first and organizations the day after never!"

"Are you stupid?!" He heard a female voice come out from within the large truck he just toppled over, and saw a young girl, probably around his age, with long, flowing, red hair, dressed in a red uniform. "You do realize that it's people like you that make life difficult for the rest of us!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he responded; Japan was the dumping grounds for Familiar Summoners, so the rest of the world was stripped bare of abnormal people. "Ask anyone that lives on this archipelago that life here is just as it is anywhere else!"

"I don't have time for this! Kyoko!"

He saw her body's outline glow as pieces of the street were atomized and a human-sized mecha appeared. It was mostly red like the girl's uniform, reminding him a little of Toji's Juggernite, but it possessed a head with four eyes and a small pair of horns. He also saw that it possessed at least three ribbons on its arms and back.

The next thing he knew, he was knocked backwards by the red mecha, which came at him faster than anything he had ever encountered before. He got back up, but the redhead came at him and kicked him in his left side, knocking him further back.

"Urgh!" He grunted, getting back up and charged toward the girl for payback; he was no sexist, so anybody that came after him, male or female, was an opponent that he needed to defeat to maintain his freedom from the laws of authority. "Fist of the Wraith of Grief!"

His arms opened up and his ribbons surged with energy as he charged forward even faster at her. But the mecha got between them and raised its arms up to block his. The impact of metal against metal was different from the last time he fought a Familiar that was mechanical in appearance, as it felt like the red mecha was stronger than the Juggernite. Then, it used the ribbon on its left arm to strike him in the waist and the right arm's ribbon to wrap around his left arm, lifting him off his legs.

"Aaaurgh!" He grunted.

The mecha, Kyoko, threw him around the street, scraping his armored limbs and slammed him against an abandoned building, releasing him afterward.

"And NERV considers you a top priority?" The redhead questioned. "You must be a C-Class Familiar Summoner if you can't put up much of a challenge."

Shinji got up and his ribbons surged with energy again, propelling him toward her.

"Fist of the Wraith of Judgment!" He shouted, punching the ground and sending chunks of the streets at her. "Block that!"

Her Familiar blocked the assault and punched him backwards against a streetlight, breaking it.

"I'm not sure why NERV wants you, but I was ordered to bring you in," he heard her say, which made him uneasy…and angry at the mere thought of being taken to NERV; he heard all about what they do to Familiar Summoners, and that the ones they captured were never heard from again, which made all the ones scattered around the dumping grounds fearful and hateful of the agency. "Now get up and submit, or I'll drag you there myself."

"The only way you're taking me to NERV," he warned her, "is as a corpse!"

His armored arms opened up again and his ribbons turned green and propelled himself towards her for the third time.

_Third time's the charm!_ He thought. "Fist of the Wraith of the Fallen!"

He was going for the blow to end all blows. There was no way he was giving up his freedom without a fight for his life. So long as there was a single breath in his body in this fight with the girl, it was going to be spent trying to beat her.

Unfortunately, the girl's mecha came to her rescue once more and took his assault without so much as a flinch from the impact. Instead, his armored limbs cracked and shattered into bits. The mecha then head-butted him and sent him falling backwards.

-x-

GASP! Nami awoke to an awful nightmare. She had seen a scarlet priestess assault the man with the strong arms and good heart, and then drag him away toward a giant pyramid made of black stone surrounded by men in black suits. She jumped out of bed and ran toward the bedroom belonging to Shinji, but found his bed empty.

"Shinji-Kun," she sighed, "where are you?"

"Nami?" She turned away from the empty bedroom and toward the other boy she lived with.

He was around Shinji's age, wearing glasses and was something of a nerd, a know-it-all, to the both of them and. All she and Shinji really knew about him when they met him was that he called him Kensuke Aida, and he was orphaned by his parents because he wasn't normal, whatever he meant by "normal".

"Kensuke-Kun," she greeted him, "have you seen Shinji-Kun?"

"Un-uh," he responded. "He must be out getting food again."

What Nami didn't know was that Kensuke was the only one out of the two that knew Shinji was a Familiar Summoner and fought with other Familiar Summoners to obtain money, the very money they lived on. This meant that Shinji could be gone for days at a time and not be heard from until he came back. This often had Kensuke wondering if it would hurt Nami if she ever found out what Shinji did for a living outside the house.

-x-

The only good thing about being barely conscious, aside from having time to clear his mind of the random thoughts that flooded it, was that Shinji could ignore the people that spoke to him as if he were being interrogated by them.

"…Now, we know that you're Shinji Ikari, yet we weren't able to locate any verification of where you've been living at in Japan," a shadowed man said to him. "Of course, with the charges for crimes against humanity, reckless endangerment and destruction of public property, you qualify for the death sentence. But there's a way you could avoid this fate…"

_My name's not Ikari,_ he thought. _Where's the guy I'm looking for? And that girl? That redhead?_

"…Surrender to NERV, be reeducated, and join the Anti-Familiar Summoner Program," the man offered, though it seemed the boy was muttering something under his breath. "You would find that in the program, you would have a simpler lifestyle…and serve a greater purpose…"

_The redhead,_ Shinji continued to ignore the man, now conscious enough to know that there were three girls around his age, demonstrating the ability to summon and control disembodied, mechanical hands to restrain him. _Where is the redhead? The girl that brought me here?!_

As more of his awareness returned, his muscles tensed…but all the man that tried to persuade him to join NERV was seeing was that he was getting impatient with the lack of response.

"I'm awaiting your answer, Shinji Ikari!" He yelled at him. "Speak up!"

Shinji raised his head up and looked at the man cloaked in darkness, his face contorted with anger and disgust, and he said, "Where's the girl?! The redhead?! The one that brought me here?! Where is she?! I want to speak with her!"

The man was appalled! This boy had been ignoring everything he had said to him.

-x-

"…So, he wasn't listening to the offer at all?" Fuyutsuki asked Gendo, looking at an updated file of the son he abandoned when he found out he was a Familiar Summoner. "He must be uninterested with the organization to the point where the offer to join it is no different from being asked to sell his soul to the Devil."

"All he asked for was the Familiar Summoner that brought him here," Gendo explained, pondering how to best take hold of the current situation.

"He asked for Ms. Soryu? Why her?"

"It would seem that he has a matter of pride to resolve with her."

"Are you at all concerned that he has rejected the offer to join NERV?"

"If he wants to survive, he'll join."

"And if he continues to refuse?"

"He won't have any other choice."

-x-

"…So, none of you saw Shinji being captured by NERV's attack dogs?" Kensuke asked a bunch of kids living in one if the abandoned skyscrapers of Tokyo.

"We stayed quiet, away from the windows and hoped to the kami that they didn't come looking for us," a little boy explained. "We heard about what NERV does to people like us, so we do our best to stay out of sight."

Kensuke, who decided that he had to go looking for Shinji, hot-wired a car and drove around, looking for clues to the whereabouts of his friend. So far, the only idea he had on where he could be was a location near Lake Ashi over in Hakone, but that place was considered a no-go zone for Familiar Summoners on the belief that NERV was primarily stationed there. And there was the belief that there were some ordinary people the lived in a city there that was walled off from the rest of the world. If Shinji was there, he had to risk his own life to get him out of that pit.

-x-

Misato got a good look at the infamous Shinji Ikari, or Shinji, as he stated of himself, and found it remarkable that he was able to survive for ten years on an archipelago that was a dumping ground for his kind of people. Though it seemed like he didn't have much in the sense of personal hygiene; his pants and shirt were filthy and his coat was ragged. How he managed to live this long was anyone's guess, but to find him restrained by chains was like a prisoner convicted of crimes they never committed, and the only thing he did wrong was being born different. But she knew that wasn't his fault in any way that could've been.

Shinji, who was looking at the floor of his prison cell, ignored that she was there looking at him. There was no need to talk with her. He saw the NERV logo on her uniform, and that meant she was the enemy, the tormentor, not worth his time talking to or even reasoning with.

"I heard he was asking for me, the stupid boy," Misato turned around and saw Asuka entering the cell, looking irritable.

Shinji raised his head up and frowned at her.

"Hey," he uttered, "watch who you put labels on."

"Or what?" She countered.

Then, he tried to summon his Familiar to hurt her, but she was faster at summoning than he was. Her Kyoko was fully formed and approached him, knocking him aside as the atomized chains reformed into the ribbons on his back, making it easy for Asuka to grab him by his head and punch him against the nearest wall.

"You think a C-Class Familiar Summoner could honestly be a match for an A-Class one like me?" She questioned him. "Don't make me laugh! You might be one of the toughest boys on the archipelago out there on the streets, but down here in NERV, I'm the superior one."

Shinji struggled to rise back to his feet, but Kyoko grabbed him by his neck and kept him on the wall.

"Asuka, call your Familiar off!" Misato ordered her. "You were ordered not to kill him!"

The redhead willed her Familiar to loosen its grip on the boy's neck, allowing him to breathe easily.

"You wanted to see me, and I'm here," Asuka told him. "What do you want?"

"To settle a score with you from earlier. You brought me down here to NERV to be their servant. No way in Hell would I stoop so low as to be their pawn."

"Better that than a prisoner."

"We're all prisoners, one way or another, whether it's here on this archipelago…or out there in the world. Better to be out there than down here."

"At least here, Familiar Summoners have the opportunity to avoid the discrimination by putting their abilities to the service of the greater good."

"What greater good? I see only right and wrong, moral and immoral. And NERV is immoral! It's either enslavement or worse than that. Who would give up their freedom just for a better life that's an empty promise? Freedom is the right of everyone, whether they're like regular people…or the freaks they like to call those that do something so unusual they get the labels that are awful."

"You're likely going to rot in Hell for your refusal to submit."

"Everyday is Hell when your life and freedom are put on the line or in danger. It's a fight or flight world. People hurt each other on a regular basis. You fight when you can overcome your adversary…and you flee when you're cornered. The Familiar Summoners that live out there want nothing to do with any government-affiliated agencies that want to exploit them…and some of them can't protect themselves from people like you that hunt them like prey. They needed someone to stand up for them!"

"And, what, you decided to be their Robin Hood?"

"If it wasn't me, then who would stick up for the helpless? Not you, certainly. I can see where you stand…and it's with the assholes that want to own and control, not help and protect."

PUNCH! Asuka punched Shinji in his face and watched the blood-mixed saliva drip from his mouth.

"You're pathetic as you're stupid," she told him, turned to leave.

"Do tell me one thing, though," Shinji stopped her. "I ask this question to nearly everyone…'cause it's a personal matter."

She turned around to face him.

"What is your question?" She asked him.

"Do you know anything on the identity or the whereabouts of the Familiar Summoner with silver fire?" He asked her.

"What?"

"Have you ever seen a man wrapped in skeletal armor with a red, right arm and green, left one?" He clarified for her.

"I've never seen or heard of any Familiar Summoners above the age of fifteen. What, did this guy look over twenty or thirty?"

"A simple 'yes' or 'no' would've been better to hear."

"Oh, you're a straight-to-the-point guy. No, I've never seen such a man before. Why are you even looking for him?"

"He's my priority. Like I've said, it's personal."

-x-

As Kensuke stood outside of the small city the NERV base was built underneath of, he worried over how he was going to get in without being found out, rescue Shinji with little trouble, and escape back home to Nami. He could've tried using his Familiar, but his wasn't the type you could use against people, either to harm or protect. And Kensuke wasn't a guy that fought others, not even to make a mark in the rumors of powerful fighters. He was a pushover with a lousy Familiar.

"Here goes my freedom that I'm risking to free a friend," he told himself, and stepped into the city boundaries to infiltrate NERV.

-x-

Misato was officially pissed off with what she discovered about Shinji's fate: Eternity of suspended animation pending whether or not he was capable of performing hard labor. She found both to be too extreme, even for NERV. Normally, the options for those that refused to join the program for Familiar Summoners was just incarceration in maximum security-themed juvenile detention centers, but to be frozen or forced to do hard labor was never a solution, even for someone that was barely of working age.

As she went to question the commander's decision, the boy in question was hanging by his wrists over a pool of ice-cold water while the air around him was hot enough to fry an egg.

Suddenly, a door opened and a young woman walked into the room as the hot air stopped and the pool was closed up by a folding panel. She looked almost like she could pass for a boy with her short hair and young face.

"I can escort you to your sentence hearing…if you feel you can behave yourself," she told him.

He looked at her and, while his eyes seemed glazed over, responded, "Yes, ma'am."

She walked over to a winch and pushed a button that lowered him down by his chains. It had been demonstrated in a number of tests and experiments over the years that Familiar Summoners weakened by changes in their environment lose the energy necessary to summon their Familiars, such as an increase or decrease in temperature or a life-shortening condition like a plague. By using these discoveries to their advantage, NERV was able to control Familiar Summoners to a degree.

Once Shinji was on the floor, she undid his chains and escorted him down the hall.

"…But each penalty is too extreme for him," Misato told Gendo.

"That's only as a last resort if he continues to persist," he told her back. "He has no idea how powerful he can become over time. He needs to be controlled."

"But what if he can't be controlled? What if he won't allow himself to be controlled?"

"Then he will be dealt with severely."

All the while Shinji was being escorted down the hall by the young woman. But the boy wasn't by any means as vulnerable as he had been prior to his defeat. As time past, he felt his strength return to him; several months facing dozens of Familiar Summoners had left Shinji learning that he needed to build up his energy reserves…and conserve as much as possible.

"Flowers wither and lose their color, much as I reflect in vain the time lost in the long rain," he uttered.

"What?" The woman questioned.

"To me right now, every moment is no different from a flower. You experience things…and they're over. Can you explain any of those moments that you experience that are just something you can only experience once?"

"I don't think anyone can explain anything that's considered an experience," she responded.

"And some Familiar Summoners have claimed to experience the same thing over and over again, each time they use their Familiars. I've tried to do the same…and find the same experience to be impossible to live more than once. Every moment that is lived once can never be lived again. Other experiences deserve to be forgotten. Sleep that leads to nightmares, nightmares that lead to disasters and further disgust. A threat to one's freedom is always imminent and filled with woe. Some will wonder what can they do in the face of the danger, others will hope that they can protect what they feel they can't live without, whoever or whatever they might be."

Then, unbeknownst to the woman, Shinji's arms started to glow…and pieces of the walls behind them started to atomize.

To be continued…

A/N: In time, further chapters will come. Pray, wish, request, wait, and you shall receive. Peace.


End file.
